Note:Redid first postHuge Swords and Tentacle MonstersBattle varying degrees of huge tentacle monsters with a somewhat inefficient laser grappling hook sword thing, I guess...That's about all there is to it right now ^^

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« Last Edit: November 27, 2016, 05:02:30 am by Cakeprediction »

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Huge Swords and Tentacles Devlog"If you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be... a tragedy""You have to tell your hands to freaking do the stuff until your hands know it by their tiny hand hearts"

Very promising. Please do show more if you can. My bet is that this could be fun to play. Setup is surely very unique. Plus, I think a skilled artist (especially one capable of a technical trick or two) could do MIRACLES on top of something with this potential, making the game incredible to look ate and the setting extremely captivating (in kinda in between, say, Shadow of The Colossus, Sword&Sworcery, and HammerFight). My two pennies about this: stay well away from cute/kawaii for this one.

Thank you, I'll show more as soon as I have more The settings you have described is indeed something I'm gonna try to aim for atmosphere-wise, still figuring out the story a bit though.I'm gonna have to find an artist if you think cute isn't the way to go(which you're probably right on), since I'm very bad at doing non-cuteish art :')Update 1:First update :D.So I just made a text box that can have different effects per character, all stored in one string. Pretty happy it worked out ^^This is totally original text and stuff, definitely not Undertale. Definitely did not use this text because I couldn't come up with anything and thought this quote was cool...Yup. Definitely.

As you can see, I've used three drawing types here:"Blue","Normal" and "Shake".

The way I do this is by simply adding commands written like this:”/drawtype/” to the string, and the text box will automatically skip them during the drawing text phase and set the drawing effect to the effect inbetween those two “/”s. Also, it goes down a line whenever the character "#" is used. Standard in Game maker, but the way I draw stuff is a bit different than the normal way Game Maker does things, so I had to add that myself too. The string in this one is for example:"/blue/It's a beautiful day outside./normal/#Birds are singing.#Flowers are blooming.#On days like these, kids like you/shake/#Should be burning in hell."

Not as exciting as huge tentacle monsters, but it’s still something important and cool nonetheless I'll post another update whenever I have another interesting thing ready. Almost all the basic mechanics are in, so might be going to work on the real playable prototype thingy soon-ish, along with adding more enemies and swords and stuff(although I actually still need to add picking up and dropping swords and shields)

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Huge Swords and Tentacles Devlog"If you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be... a tragedy""You have to tell your hands to freaking do the stuff until your hands know it by their tiny hand hearts"

I noticed your Undertale reference as I was listening to Death By Glamour. Very original

Shush, placeholder texts don't need to be original Update 2:I've added two things these two days, the first of which is equipping swords and shields:Basically tried to make swords and shields get stuck in the wall, after which you can pick them up(still a bit wonky sometimes tho, sometimes it looks like they stick to the wall instead of being stuck in it). Whenever picking up a weapon, you throw your old one away casually since there isn't an inventory(have decided on that after some thinking, pretty much just didn't want to give the game an inventory for the sake of the game having an inventory). I thought it looked quite funny, so I kept it.

whenever being able to pick up an sword or shield, a small hud appears, showing you the name of the sword(for now it's a number) and the durability left. I've decided to actually not display the weapon's stats and tier, because I kinda want to let the player experiment with weapons and kind of decide for themselves what weapon plays better for them, without having to look at the stats and tier(you'll figure out the tier when fighting anyway).

Also, it's not like the player ingame actually has any knowledge of swords. If she did, she probably wouldn't use swords that size after all.

The second thing I worked on is a new enemy:The Ancient caller(haven't actually decided on the name yet). this guy is more human than the enemies I've previously shown, despite still having lots of tentacles on his magical flying thingy on his back.He basically flies around, trying to keep a healthy distance from you and occasionally, summoning portals that shoot out tentacles that actually hurt the player.Making tentacles that actually have a direction proved to be a bit difficult thanks to my silly standard tentacle system, so I actually cheated a bit by making new tentacle parts whenever I needed them. However, this worked out quite well, especially how the getting sucked back in portal animation thingy turned out, like it's actually getting pulled back with real force.Also, these tentacles' tiers are very high, so your shield will probably not like them.Not sure what next update will be about, honestly. There's a few things left to do before the first prototype release:1.Add an item system similar to Isaac, but with some different design choices on that part2.Add in the generator of the levels/world(not quite sure yet how to go at this, still playing around a bit with environment and generation ideas)3.Add in the planned story elements4.Add in the bossBut perhaps I'll just say screw it and make another enemy. Those are fun to make after all.

« Last Edit: January 30, 2016, 01:25:21 pm by Cakeprediction »

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Huge Swords and Tentacles Devlog"If you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be... a tragedy""You have to tell your hands to freaking do the stuff until your hands know it by their tiny hand hearts"

For the sword and shields that stick into the ground thing, you could have a combination of two methods: have the speeds of an item slowed down as it collides with the ground, and making sure that it doesn't go beyond the center of the object. That way it'll look like it's sinking into the ground, but it also ensure that it can't ever go so far that the player can't reach it.

Also I'm loving the progress being made on this project, this is looking like it'll be a fun game when it comes out!

Dude, if it has tentacle monsters in the title, you need to have the ability to cut the tentacles. I would actually got rid of traditional hp for enemies and just make it all about cutting and interacting with tentacles. That will also make every hit very satisfying when an actual functional part of enemy will come of. Don't have the tentacles just like a gimmick, go full on with it. Dead space on steroids.

Also the story needs to be about saving japanese schoolgirl, and setting is highschool. Maybe not.

For the sword and shields that stick into the ground thing, you could have a combination of two methods: have the speeds of an item slowed down as it collides with the ground, and making sure that it doesn't go beyond the center of the object. That way it'll look like it's sinking into the ground, but it also ensure that it can't ever go so far that the player can't reach it.

Also I'm loving the progress being made on this project, this is looking like it'll be a fun game when it comes out!

Thanks , I indeed switching to a similar-ish method after you posted this comment, still not entirely working so I'll probably switch over completely to your idea.Also, I'm glad you're excited ^^.

If you find the right artist you've got a gem. Now it's already diamond.

Ancient caller has also become my favourite to fight against :p. Planning on making another enemy with the same idea of dodging tentacles, but then doing it a bit differently.Thank you for the kind word , Have found an artist that'll probably stick 'till the end, but don't want to show anything until I've got a fully composed screen ^^

Dude, if it has tentacle monsters in the title, you need to have the ability to cut the tentacles. I would actually got rid of traditional hp for enemies and just make it all about cutting and interacting with tentacles. That will also make every hit very satisfying when an actual functional part of enemy will come of. Don't have the tentacles just like a gimmick, go full on with it. Dead space on steroids.

Also the story needs to be about saving japanese schoolgirl, and setting is highschool. Maybe not.

That's quite an interesting idea which could prove to be really fun. However, I personally don't think I'll be adding it in this game(it's a fun idea for another game later perhaps tho). The reasons being these:-The general design of the monsters and the weapon aren't suited for precise tentacle aiming. It would be utter hell to specifically hit the tentacles every time with such a slow, clunky weapon as the player has.-Most tentacles don't serve any purpose anyway, giving them one would require a hefty change in my code.-Making the physics for it at this point of time would take a long while and might as well break the game.

About the story, does this suffice?As you can read, it's translated poorly.Update 3:I've done a few things today, of which a few failed:-I thought about the item system, I'll try to add it tomorrow-I've changed the font into a monospace font so the alignment isn't weird anymore-I've added different weapons with different names, graphics and stats-Tried to make a start on the level generation, which failed. gonna overthink the level generation a bit more tomorrow.And last but not least, something I can show.I've added another enemy. It's even bigger.This guy is basically a flying Moldorm from Zelda. He flies away, then goes towards you, slows down to prepare for an attack and then charges. Your shield has pretty much no effect on this guy, being very high tier and being so freaking huge that your shield wouldn't be able to block it.Only his head and backside have a hitbox, I tried to give the body a hitbox first too, but it was way too hard to dodge.His head is high tier and your sword'll suffer quite a lot if you try to hit it. It's backside however, is very soft and low-tier, making it its weak spot. Makes you wonder how he ever survived natural selection... Also, it has lots of freaky eyes that follow you on its head.

So yeah, as I said, I'll probably work on the item system tomorrow and think some more about the level generation. Perhaps I'll also create another enemy, because it's fun to make those, and gives me something to do every day.

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Huge Swords and Tentacles Devlog"If you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be... a tragedy""You have to tell your hands to freaking do the stuff until your hands know it by their tiny hand hearts"

Wow those are some great tentacles. It's already fun to look at but it'll look amazing one day, I'm sure. =)

Thank you, I hope so ^^Update 4:So many consecutive days of devlog, I guess I've been wanting to work on it at least a bit every day so won't grow tired of the game. If the amount of entries per week or something is bothering anybody, please say so, then I'll lower the amount per week(right now it's whenever I have something cool, which is almost every day).Anyway, today I worked on the Item system, which is in place(only thing right now is that there's only one item).The only item there is now is that triangle in the gif. It lets you shoot out a beam from your sword whenever your health is higher than 50% of your max health.Here are some thoughts on items in this game btw:-Items aren't stackable-Items give passive effects, similar to Isaac-Absolutely no items that only give stat ups or down or something-You'll only get a limited amount of items per run, so all items should be pretty strong on its own, no shit items.

I also made another enemy, again(It's just so much fun creating these :D)This one is mechanically a sort of mix of the Behemoth and the Ancient Caller. He flies a around a bit, tracks you some(although stays a bit further away in comparison with the behemoth) and after a while, shoots out its tongue tentacle. The moment the tentacle latches on to you, it'll wait a bit and after that, pull you towards its mouth, dealing massive damage and flinging you away. If the tongue misses, it latches to a wall, and after a little while, it launches itself towards its tongyue with great force.It's name is the Devourer(my names are so original and stuff).so, here's the gif:As you can see, the moment has arrived where I'm able to match some parts of pre-existing enemies together into an entirely new enemy :D

I might start on the story a bit tomorrow, since I'm not really feeling like making a level generator yet.I could also start working on the boss, but that'll be a pretty big thing, so idk really.

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Huge Swords and Tentacles Devlog"If you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be... a tragedy""You have to tell your hands to freaking do the stuff until your hands know it by their tiny hand hearts"

Update 5:Wow, it's been a while.The past few weeks I've really had trouble with refining ideas and thinking about where I want this project to go, so I was a bit stuck. I do think I've got a more clear idea of what I want to do now though(although not entirely still.), so I've continued adding features and stuff.

Something I really want to do with this project is create something I'm passionate about, which is why getting a clear idea I liked about everything is proving to be very difficult.

Anyway, here are two small, but needed features, and I thought those two together'd justify me posting a new devlog.First, there's a change to the cam, it's now based on the direction you're looking at and whenever an enemy is close enough, it tracks the estimate position of you and that enemy:I'm hoping this'll make fights a bit more dynamic.

The second feature is the addition of doors and a nice transition:I've always had a slight weak spot for games where rooms seem totally unattached and you get from one room to another by doors that pretty much teleport you. This way it'll enable me also to generate fun rooms without really having to think about the player being able to reach other rooms through platforming.

I have a week off now, so I'm gonna try to get a push towards the first prototype, although that'll still take a long while.

See you later

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Huge Swords and Tentacles Devlog"If you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be... a tragedy""You have to tell your hands to freaking do the stuff until your hands know it by their tiny hand hearts"

Do you ever thought about that type of graphics you will put the game or will be like those of the images?

I actually have an artist already, but I'm only willing to show anything and'll add anything when the first prototype is done code-wise. Using simple blocks like this allows me to prototype things way faster and not have to worry about if it'll look good specifically graphics-wise.

In the end I decided to go for pre-made levels in a level editor anyway, simply because of a few reasons:-Level design'll be better-I don't have to spend such a godawful time creating a good-working algorithm that can make cool and interesting levels procedurally-If I toy around enough with graphical assets in rooms and add enough room layouts, the difference between premade and proc-gen levels won't actually be that big

Here's a gif:When creating levels, I basically load in a layout , place some doors inside that place their connected door somewhere else where the same process'll happen. Works pretty well(in this gif there are still some issues with how close doors are to each other, the amount of doors and the alignment on blocks), so I'm happy .If you pay attention to the numbers in the top-middle of the screen, which are the x and y position of the player, you'll notice that they're going batshit crazy every time you enter a new room. This is because the rooms are actually spread out a lot, so you don't notice them when in another room. I first thought this'd be an issue with the mapping, but I actually came up with a rather interesting solution which'll probably be the content of my next update.

Also, I've added the ability to chop off tentacles, although they don't count towards the beasts health, like suggested by Weckr. I'll post a gif of that next time too :D

See you!

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Huge Swords and Tentacles Devlog"If you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be... a tragedy""You have to tell your hands to freaking do the stuff until your hands know it by their tiny hand hearts"

Just chiming in to say I'm loving all the tentacle action you've shown so far and I'm really excited to see this game make progress!

Thanks :DUpdate 7:Darn, I'm on a roll ^^. I spent all day trying to finish a system I had in mind, and I actually did it :D.Perhaps I should limit the amount of consecutive daily devlog posts...

Before that though, here's the gif of chopping tentacles like I promised:It looks a bit weird though, and I'm not sure how to fix that, so perhaps I'll remove it later on and just make chopped of tentacle parts explode instead of fly off screen.

Here's the new system though: It's mapping ^^Because my room generation is pretty weird positioning-wise, it'd be tough to create decent-looking non-confusing floor layouts, so I just decided to let the player make them!Whenever ingame, you can see the current room on the top-right, and when you're touching a door to a room you've already visited, it also shows that room underneath the current room, along with a line to show which two doors are connected.

If you press M, you also open up the full layout of the rooms you've already discovered, plus the connections between doors. In that screen, you can also adjust the positions of those rooms in comparison to each other. This actually works out pretty well readability-wise, so I'm happy with it

Any good or bad thoughts on this system?

Also, I'm thinking about adding some NPCs and more AI stuff for enemies(some going through doors, some not seeing you at first, some being passive at first, perhaps even beasts attacking each other) next update.

See you then!

« Last Edit: February 22, 2016, 10:09:07 am by Cakeprediction »

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Huge Swords and Tentacles Devlog"If you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be... a tragedy""You have to tell your hands to freaking do the stuff until your hands know it by their tiny hand hearts"